What Does Acts 13:30 Mean?

But God raised him from the dead.

Acts 13:30 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

But God raised him from the dead:

THE KEY

The verb translated “raised” also means “wake,” so resurrection carries the sound of awakening from within death.

THE MEANING

God acts where death has taken hold: Jesus is raised from the dead. The verse speaks now by placing life’s decisive movement in God, while still naming death as real.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that death has the final authority is undone: the verse names God as the one who raises from its midst.

THE ROOT

ἤγειρεν

ēgeiren

GROWS FROM

ἐγείρω

egeirō

to wake, rouse, raise up

“raised” in this verse is ēgeiren. English “raise” can sound like simple upward motion, but this verb also means to wake or rouse. That overlap makes Jesus’ resurrection sound like waking from death, while keeping the agency clear: God is the one who acts.

ALSO GROWS

awaken: rouse from sleep; wake

The same verb can describe waking a sleeper, so resurrection carries the language of awakening.

raise up: cause to rise or stand; bring back to life

Here God is the actor: Jesus is brought up from among the dead.

THE PATTERN

God’s life-giving action reaches into death and brings the dead into life.

The LORD kills, and makes alive; he brings down to the grave, and brings up.

1 Samuel 2:6 · SDVThe verse holds death and life together as acts under God’s power, including bringing up from the grave.

For just as the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, so the Son makes alive whomever he wills.

John 5:21 · SDVLife comes to the dead through the Father’s raising and life-giving action.

And God raised the Lord, and will raise us through his strength.

1 Corinthians 6:14 · SDVThe raising of Jesus opens onto God’s power to raise others as well.

THE THREAD

Therefore it says, Wake, sleeper, and stand up from the dead, and the Anointed One will shine upon you.

Ephesians 5:14 · SDV

The verb translated “raised” here is the same verb rendered “Awake” in Ephesians 5:14, where waking is paired with “arise from the dead.” The shared verb lets resurrection echo the image of waking, a connection English renders with two different words.

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